I impatiently waited on the blue sofa, peeping through the window, hoping to see our car — which was bringing Tarzan home for the first time — to pull into the driveway. Six years later, I sat on that very same blue sofa, waiting for the car to pull into the driveway so that I could say goodbye to him for the very last time. It was one of the most painful parallels of my life.

After my family and I moved out of our respectable three bedroom apartment to a proper house, my parents found the exigent need to get a guard dog. As IT engineers, they often got home late from the office and my brother and I weren’t old enough to sit alone. And so, after much deliberation and discussion, as in hours of squabbling and fighting, we eventually found a three-month-old Doberman Pinscher in our front yard. In accordance with the family tradition of naming dogs after previous family dogs, we named him Tarzan after my mum’s childhood dog. 

Before Tarzan came into my life, I was mostly scared of animals. I didn’t know how their minds worked and naturally I was afraid of what I didn’t understand. As a pup Tarzan was a scared, floppy dog. He didn’t know how to use his hind legs to run properly and was scared to jump from the veranda to the ground — a fear which he never got over through the entirety of his life, even though the veranda was only a metre or so high. With him, I slowly learnt how animals think — how they have emotions and intelligence and how they respond to humans. It was also the first time I was touching an animal in such close proximity. I vividly remember caressing the skin under his paws for the first time and feeling a shiver run down my spine. I was initially terrified of his wet, snoopy nose but it soon became my favourite place to plant kisses. 

Dobermans are natural guard dogs and Tarzan certainly lived up to that reputation. At six-months-old, he began to capture and kill the few snakes that strayed across our compound during the rainy season, giant monitor lizards, slimy fat toads and sometimes even small house lizards. Anything living that came into the four walls of our residence was not spared. He also developed a strong, overprotective personality. The newspaper man, the milkman and even Amazon delivery boys were not pardoned from his ritualistic show of strength. Alongside that, his mischievous Doberman traits cost us countless pairs of footwear, socks and clothes. Once in a while he would sneak out the gates for his own mini-adventure. On one occasion the four of us had to run behind him in our nightwear at six in the morning like a scene from a movie. But despite all this, we doted on him like the small pup he was to us. 

Evenings after school were spent playing fetch and lying on the grass with him. On the weekends, we’d play football, Tarzan and me teaming up against my brother. During my boards, he’d sit with me while I studied and when I ate my meals he would drool with puppy eyes for a morsel of it. When I would visit home from college, he was the first one to greet me — wagging his tiny tail and perking up his floppy ears. He came to have his own little bean-bag spot in the living room.

I wish I could cram all the happy memories I made with him here. But I can’t. As dog owners we live in the perpetual fear of that dreaded day. The day they get taken away from us. At six years old, Tarzan showed no signs of ageing. He was fit and healthy as ever. 

On the occasion of a long weekend, I was away from college, visiting home during the rainy month of September. Usually when he fights a snake, he barks. I wonder why he didn’t that night. On hearing his frail cries, we discovered he had been bitten by a cobra. He had managed to kill it but the thing about cobras is that they're deadly. 

My dad, mum and I frantically heaved his body into our car. I remember caressing him and telling him that nothing would happen. Oh how I was so wrong. I kept telling myself he would make it, waiting for an update from my parents who had fled to the hospital. Fifteen minutes later my dad called me up. After six happy years with us, Tarzan had moved on.

I sat on the sofa waiting for my parents to bring him home. I was numb inside but the tears wouldn’t stop falling. Tarzan was my first pet and I was nowhere prepared for his death. I didn’t know what to expect or how to feel when I saw his dead body. When I did, I broke into a distraught howl, clutching my mum for support. It was strange and scary seeing his otherwise yappy and bubbly face lay there so still on our marbled veranda.

As my parents dug a hole in our backyard, I plucked up the courage to grab tissues to clean his face. It was the first time I was touching a lifeless being. I wished he was cold and rigid, but he still had his warmth about him and all I wanted in that moment was for him to turn around and look at me. But he didn’t. I sat there next to him, giving him his last belly rubs and head scratches. I kissed him one last time before we buried him with two of his toys and a packet of treats. Needless to say, the visuals of that night are excruciatingly etched in my heart. 

Now our house is so empty without his ferocious barks and chaotic zoomies to occupy it. I miss finding his black fur on my arms and saliva on my face after sloshy licks. I miss hugging his giraffe neck. His muddy pawprints on our compound walls were once an object of shame for me when friends came over. But now as I paint on them, they’re the only remnants I have left of him. I keep thinking I’ll catch a glimpse of him through each window sill and door of our home. I realise that love is felt the most only when it leaves. 

Throughout our lives, we are met with multiple losses. They are harrowing, unbearable and heartbreaking. Because of them our lives are never the same again. But these losses are precisely what make life so worth living, because nothing is forever. To love and to be loved is one of the greatest honours a human can have in the course of their life. And just because we lose people, it doesn’t ever mean we have to stop loving them. Grief is an arduous, long process but it is also a form of love. As difficult as it is, to grieve is to love. 

Animals come into our lives to shake us up and challenge what we know about love. They teach us that love comes in many forms, colours and sounds. Within the short time they are with us, they transform us into better human beings. Which is why, Tarzan, I want to thank you for everything you did for me. Thank you for erasing my fear of animals. Thank you for making me capable of receiving and giving love. Thank you for being my playmate, my study buddy and my favourite person to annoy. Thank you for making my childhood what it was. And most importantly thank you for loving me unconditionally. Getting the chance to say goodbye to you will forever be one of the greatest honours of my life. Even though this is not the way I wanted you to leave us, I know you would be happiest to die doing what you loved the most — protecting us. 

 

I miss you terribly and no amount of love, laughter and wet licks will bring you back. But my only solace is knowing that you’re in the endless fields of heaven, running freely, with a hundred butterflies to chase, your favourite squeaky toys and all the treats in the world. I only hope that when my time comes and I step on to that field, you stop for a minute to turn back at me, raise your ears and tilt your head, before running straight into my arms.